Literacy Teaching for Multilingual Students facing Difficulties with Literacy Development - a Case Study
Submitted by:
Mari Ylenfors
Abstract:
The case study highlights literacy teaching among multilingual students in an introductory class and in a regular class in Sweden. The study is theoretically framed in a sociocultural perspective and the starting point is the literacy model “The Four Resources Model (Luke and Freebody 1997) and Cummins transfer hypothesis (Cummins, 2000). The literacy model includes four teaching practices: The meaning-making practice, the code-breaking practice, the text-using practice, and the text-critical practice. The model is based on an assumption that there is an interaction between the teaching practices and that they are contextually embedded. The transfer hypothesis states that linguistic in one language benefit linguistic abilities in another language, which is an important precondition regarding literacy learning for multilingual learners.
The aim of the study was to investigate how schools´ literacy practices regarding multilingual students who encounter difficulties with reading and writing work in one school that has received praise for its Swedish as a second language teaching for multilingual students. The data is based on participant observations, interviews, and document analyses. The results indicates that the school leader’s different organisational initiatives and pedagogical approaches seem to create rich opportunities for literacy teaching. From teachers’ perspective several methods and approaches emerge which shows that teachers are working from a holistic literacy perspective where meaning-making, code-breaking, analytical, and critical aspects are intertwined and show how texts are used in practical situations (cf. Luke and Freebody, 1997). The result also show that teachers make use of students´ different linguistic competences as a resource in literacy development. However, the results also show that students’ different multilingual abilities are not mapped when identifying reading and writing difficulties. Knowledge of the importance of mapping in students’ different languages seems to exist to some extent, but organisational reasons become an obstacle. Results from the students' perspective show the difficulties they face in reading and writing, but also point to support interventions that they mean develop their literacy skills. The observations as well as other empirical data support their experiences. The results also point to other relational aspects, such as good teacher-student relationships, support in relation to challenging tasks, and teachers' high expectations and commitment towards students that seem to be of great importance and interact with literacy development. It is argued that this school provides learning opportunities that not only are beneficial for the students, but also agree with research that emphasise the importance of teaching using students’ different linguistic competences in teaching.
References:
Cummins, Jim. 2000. Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the crossfire. Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Luke, Alan, and Peter Freebody. 1997. ‘The social practices of reading.’ In S. Muspratt, A. Luke, & P. Freebody (Eds.), Constructing critical literacies: Teaching and learning textual practices, edited by Sandy Muspratt, Alan Luke, and Peter Freebody, 195-225. Cresskill: Hampton Press